


Love and Humanity

by Tarlan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M, Merry Month of Masturbation Challenge, Trope Bingo Round 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-15
Updated: 2014-05-15
Packaged: 2018-01-24 23:13:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1620425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel reflects on his love for Dean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love and Humanity

**Author's Note:**

> **trope_bingo** : futurefic  
>  **mmom 2014:** DAY 15  
>  *  
> *  
>  **WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR LATEST EPISODE! 9.22 Stairway to Heaven**  
>  *  
> *

Naomi had forced him to kill Dean over and over when she had him under her control. He could still recall his hands slick with Dean's blood even as his heart cried out in sorrow. With a hundred versions of Dean lying dead on the floor around him, he had still hesitated every time, sometimes completely incapable of delivering the killing blow, and begging forgiveness from Dean, holding him tight in his arms and kissing away his pain.

If Naomi couldn't make him kill Dean, then Hannah had no chance in heaven or hell, because Metatron had lied about many things but not the fact that he cared about Dean and Sam - and Dean in particular.

He had sent Dean away to safety, facing the wrath of Raphael alone. He had deliberately abandoned Dean in Purgatory, needing to protect Dean in the only way he could, aware that his grace would attract every demon and monster to him. He knew he would search to the ends of the Earth looking for Dean if ever he went missing, and that he would give up his eternal existence to give Dean one more breath of life. Giving up his army of Angels was nothing in comparison.

Metatron believed his weakness was for humanity, and Castiel would admit that it was only because he was in love with one human that he had learned to love all of humanity.

That human was Dean. He was in love with Dean, and though no words had ever passed between them, he knew Dean loved him back with equal passion, but they were both what Dean would call the walking wounded. His stolen grace was burning out, and Dean's humanity was being eaten alive by the mark of Cain seared into his flesh.

For a time when he was fully human, Castiel had allowed himself to experience everything, wanting to understand Dean, and lust and love on a purely human level. He had lain in his bed at night and allowed the physical need for Dean to consume his body, almost praying that God would return and hear his prayer, granting him a forever with Dean happy and loved by his side. It seemed blasphemous afterwards, as he cleaned the spilled semen from his hand and skin, and sometimes he wondered what penance he would pay for being in love with Dean.

Sometimes he dreamed, and the vision was of a future where the war had ended and the host had returned to heaven, and where demons no longer lurked in the dark shadows attacking the innocent. In his vision, Dean would be walking beside him through all the realms of heaven, laughing contentedly, their arms wrapped around each other. They would stop in the Garden, where the serpent had tempted Eve with an apple from the tree of knowledge, and Dean would reach for an apple hanging from one of the low branches. Rather than pluck it, he would lean in to inhale its clean, sharp scent.

"I love apple pie," he would say with a sweet smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes, before resisting one temptation with another by drawing Castiel in for a kiss.

Castiel missed _his_ Dean Winchester. He missed seeing Dean smile, seeing the sparkle of life in green eyes that had dulled with each layer of misery and hell heaped upon his young shoulders.

Outside the car, the bleakness of the dark and the empty road stretching before him weighed as heavy as the emotions inside the vehicle. He watched Dean's profile lit up by cars passing in the opposite direction, fingers itching to reach out and caress the handsome face and body housing a good and valiant soul that was being slowly eaten by darkness.

Castiel leaned back and let his mind drift along with the miles of road, dreaming of a bright future that was slowly slipping through his fingers.

"Cas? We okay back there?"

The headlights of an approaching car caught the spark of concern in Dean's eye as he searched for Castiel in the rear-view mirror, reminding Castiel that his Dean was still in there, that he was not yet lost completely. He believed in burning bushes, and in dreams and visions. A flare of hope filled some of the darker corners of his mind and he smiled softly in renewed determination to fight for that vision of a bright and glorious future with Dean.

"No. But we will be."

END

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End file.
